Medford Club Owners Seek To Transfer License To A Son

By Analisa Nazareno, INQUIRER CORRESPONDENT

Posted: March 21, 1995

MEDFORD — Mayor Andrew P. Korab said last night that the owners of the Medford Village Resort & Country Club want to transfer the club and its liquor license to Michael Procacci Jr., the son of one of the owners.

"It puts this in a whole new different situation," Korab said of the latest move to save the license.

Korab said that before the council could vote on the liquor-license transfer, Procacci would have to be investigated by the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control and the Medford police.

Township Manager Constance Lauffer said that she did not know how long the investigation would take.

The council had delayed a vote on a transfer of the license last month to Larry Wizeman, general manager of the club for three years. The vote was delayed, Korab said, because police officials hadn't yet received the results of a fingerprint check. That has become moot because Wizeman has dropped out.

On Jan. 6, Wizeman was prepared to pay $392,000 to purchase the license

from the club's owners, who include Michael Procacci, the father of Michael Procacci Jr. The move came just two days after the ABC ruled that Procacci and the other owners could not hold any type of liquor license for two years.

Besides Procacci, the original owners include his brother, Joseph Procacci, Joseph Leonetti, and Angelo and Lou Penza.

The ABC imposed the penalty after deciding that the Procacci group had sold alcoholic beverages at the club illegally for years because it did so with a ''club" license, which is reserved for nonprofit groups. The Procacci group eventually did buy a retail license. That is the license that Wizeman had wanted to buy.

The ABC investigates license transfers to make sure license holders have no

criminal records, are not a dummy company fronting for another company, are not police officers, and did not use money from illegal sources to acquire the license.

Currently, the recreation facilities at the Medford Village Resort & Country Club on Himmelein Road are open, but the bar is closed.